Center Activity News

Center Receives a $40,000 Grant to integrate Indigenous Epistemologies into Research & TeachingIn early June the College of Arts and Sciences awarded the Center and partners (see below) $40,000 for the proposed Mellon grant project, Comparative Intellectual Traditions: Indigenous and Western Worldviews in Area Studies to engage in an important cross-campus dialogue and expand on the foundation for the Arctic academic programs. More ...

K-12 STUDY CANADA Receives $20,000 Library of Congress Grantby Tina Storer, Education and Curriculum Specialist, Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University
According to The Economist, “the resource-rich Arctic is changing faster than anywhere on Earth, and its biggest transformation is just ahead. More ...

UW National Resource Center Awarded a $750,000 Mellon Grant
"The University of Washington has received a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its area studies programs, enabling eight Title VI National Resource Centers (NRCs) in the Jackson School of International Studies to continue their programs for students, educators, and the community." See College of Arts and Sciences press release.

Center Awarded Government of Québec Grants
The Canadian Studies Center was awarded $45,000 from the Government of Québec under the Québec Visiting Professor Grant and Québec Unit Grant. More ...

Center Receives Fund for the Arts Grant for Foodland Security Exhibition
The Canadian Studies Center was just awarded an Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) Fund for the Arts Grant to host an exhibit on food sovereignty by Inuk photographer, Barry Pottle. More …

Canadian Studies Center, October Report, 2014Center Receives a $40,000 Grant to integrate Indigenous Epistemologies into Research & Teaching

In 2013-14 the Center (in partnership with Atmospheric Sciences and Program on Climate Change) received an Arts and Sciences grant to provide fellowships to UW students for research papers on the Arctic. Arctic Research Fellows Jason Young (left), geography, and Brandon Ray, Atmospheric Sciences, visit with Inuk leader from Canada, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, to discuss their research and Inuit political mobilization in the Arctic.

In early June the College of Arts and Sciences awarded the Center and partners (see below) $40,000 for the proposed Mellon grant project, Comparative Intellectual Traditions: Indigenous and Western Worldviews in Area Studies to engage in an important cross-campus dialogue and expand on the foundation for the Arctic academic programs.

In early June the College of Arts and Sciences awarded the Center and partners – D. Million, American Indian Studies, M. E. Garcia, Comparative History of Ideas, T. Lucero, Latin American Studies, S. Pekkanen, Jackson School, E. Steig, Atmospheric Sciences, S. Gardner, Philosophy, and J. Marlow, Law - $40,000 for the proposed Mellon grant project, Comparative Intellectual Traditions: Indigenous and Western Worldviews in Area Studies.

The project activities are designed to assist the Center and partners in ensuring that the developing Arctic academic programs are rooted in indigenous epistemologies as well as Western ways of knowing. The proposal asks the important question, how can U.S. Department of Education Title VI programs in the Jackson School effectively incorporate the Arctic as a world region in to their academic programs; and, activities and how will particular characteristics of the Arctic – specifically Arctic indigenous worldviews – challenge and broaden current understandings of the area and international studies field.

The proposal identifies three main projects including laying an intellectual foundation for the Arctic academic program (Arctic minor); holding three workshops to discuss the need for and design of a Graduate Certificate in Arctic Studies; and, continuing funding for three Arctic Research Fellowships.

The proposal builds from the 2013-14 funded project, Re-imagining Area and International Studies in the 21st Century: The Arctic as an Emerging Region, that provided eight U.W. graduate students with fellowships to write research papers. See http://www.jsis.washington.edu/arctic/grad/arctic.shtml.

Canadian Studies Center, March Report, 2013K-12 STUDY CANADA Receives $20,000 Library of Congress Grant
by Tina Storer, Education and Curriculum Specialist, Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University

According to The Economist, “the resource-rich Arctic is changing faster than anywhere on Earth, and its biggest transformation is just ahead. Due to climate change, the polar ice cap is shrinking and floating summer ice is projected to disappear altogether, setting alarm bells ringing for environmentalists, but opening up new perspectives for trade and development.” In order to meet future challenges, it is vital that today’s students learn more about issues already at play in the Arctic so it is timely, indeed, that the Pacific Northwest National Resource Center on Canada (a University of Washington-Western Washington University consortium) was recently awarded a $20,000 Teaching with Primary Sources (Western Region) Grant by the Library of Congress to offer a 2-1/2 day professional development workshop for K-12 educators called “Archives on the Arctic: Connecting to Global Issues with Primary Sources”.

The professional development workshop program will be held in Denver, CO in June 2013 on the campus of the Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSUD) in partnership with TPS Western Division staff, so that K-12 social studies and science teachers from throughout the western United States can be trained about cultural and environmental challenges in the circumpolar north as well as about the use of Library of Congress and the World Digital Library archival materials.

Tina Storer, Education and Curriculum Specialist at WWU’s Center for Canadian-American Studies, submitted the grant proposal because the NRC on Canada has developed a strong reputation for K-12 outreach related to the circumpolar north. She will serve as the project director. Nadine Fabbi, Associate Director of UW’s Canadian Studies Center, has extensive expertise and experience on the topic so she will offer three presentations that provide workshop participants with the foundation for teaching about complex historical, cultural, environmental and geo-political issues related to the north. Additional instruction will be offered by Teaching with Primary Sources Program staff and their teacher-associates to introduce participants to a rich reservoir of digitized primary source materials. Instructional tools for actively engaging students in historical inquiry and developing primary source-based curricula for posting on the TPS Western Region and K-12 STUDY CANADA websites will also be shared.

At least twenty leaders in education from across the western United States with experience or interest in performing outreach, including K-12 STUDY CANADA teacher-associates, will be invited to participate in the workshop. A travel stipend will be offered to all and their accommodations, 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 1 dinner will be covered by the grant, contingent on participants’ development of curricula and/or performance of additional outreach in their home states.

According to the grantors, the impressive potential for extended outreach was a key factor in the proposal’s success. In addition, because the interrelationships between the US and Canada are particularly pronounced in the Arctic—whether the topic is geographical boundaries, indigenous cultures, resource exploitation, transportation or political conflicts—classroom instruction inevitably leads to this important cross-border relationship and, as such, is a “natural fit” for an NRC on Canada-Library of Congress collaboration. It is hopefully the first of many to come.

“STUDY CANADA,” the Pacific Northwest National Resource Center on Canada’s annual professional development workshop, has been offered by the Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University for the last 34 years serving educators from almost every state in the nation. The Institute is funded, in part, by a Title VI grant from International and Foreign Language Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education. Paulette is a Humanities and World Language Teacher in the Ida B. Wells School for Social Justice and a U.W. graduate student in Education, Curriculum and Instruction (Multicultural Education). View the K-12 STUDY CANADA website.

Center Awarded Government of Québec Grants

The Canadian Studies Center was awarded $45,000 from the Government of Québec under the Québec Visiting Professor Grant and Québec Unit Grant.

The Québec Visiting Professor Grant will enable Joël Plouffe, Research Fellow, Center for the United States and Center for Geopolitical Studies, Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, l’Université du Québec à Montréal, to serve as the U.W.’s 2012-13 Guest Professor from Québec. Joël will co-teach the Task Force on Arctic Policy, Plan Nord and Plan Nunavik, provide the Québec Visiting Professor Lecture, and co-chair a symposium on Québec’s role in the Arctic.

The Task Force is the flagship course for International Studies majors in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. In Winter Quarter 2013 about 14 U.W. students and two Inuit students from Nunavik, Québec will be part of a team that will write a policy report on the unique relationship between Québec and the Inuit of Nunavik in governing the northern region of the province. Joël will co-teach and co-led the class to Ottawa for a one-week research intensive with Nadine Fabbi, Canadian Studies Center.

Joël will also work with the Center to plan a two-day Arctic symposium focused on Plan Nord assessing the successes and challenges of implementation, the unique relationship Québec has with its northern peoples, and the value of Plan Nord as a model for regional Arctic policies internationally. Québec is unique in that two-thirds of the province constitutes the north, a region twice the size of France. The area is extremely important to the Québec economy. Québec’s north produces three-quarters of Québec’s hydro and provides the majority of the province’s nickel, zinc, iron ore, and much of its gold. It is also home to 120,000 northern residents over one quarter of whom are indigenous peoples including 10,000 Inuit.

In 1975 Cree, Inuit and Québec government signed the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement (JBNQA) to resolve disputes over hydroelectric development in the north. Under the terms of the Agreement the Makivvik Kuapuriisat (Makivik Corporation, ᒪᑭᕝᕕᒃ ᑯᐊᐳᕇᓴᑦ) was formed to administer the compensation funds. According to Jackson School alum, D. Maltais (McGill), “The Inuit have transformed themselves into a strong political actor within Québec and have successfully contested either the legality or the legitimacy of different political and economic projects, giving Québec little choice but to sit down and negotiate so that their rights may be respected and their demands may be heard” (paper presented at the 2011 ACSUS conference, Ottawa). This is certainly evident in a new citizen movement in Nunavik advocating that Inuit support for Plan Nord be withdrawn. These complex issues will continue to unfold as Plan Nord is revised and implemented. These are the challenges that will be addressed at the 2013 University of Washington-l’Université du Québec à Montréal’s Plan Nord Symposium.

The Québec Unit Grant, the second grant awarded to the Canadian Studies Center, will enable the Center to build a stronger teaching and research program in Québec Studies at the U.W. The Center, in conjunction with Urban Design and Planning, College of Built Environments, will create a Québec Unit building on preexisting Québec research, study and programming strengths at the U.W. The Québec Unit will develop four priorities programs: 1) host a symposium on Plan Nord as part of the Center’s Arctic policy studies initiative; 2) enhance URBDP 498 Comparative Urban Planning and Design, an annual joint offering between U.W.’s Urban Design and Planning, l’Université Laval, l’Université du Québec à Montréal, and University of Montréal; 3) create a grant program for U.W. student study-in-Québec opportunities; 4) and, create a Québec research site on the U.W. Libraries and Center websites and purchase collections related to the project.

To achieve these goals Canadian Studies and Urban Design and Planning will build on existing interuniversity collaborations (l’Université Laval, l’Université du Québec à Montréal, and University of Montréal); intra-university partnerships (College of the Environment, Department of French and Italian Studies); and, the Center’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship program that supports Québec-based research and French language acquisition.

Fritz Wagner, Urban Design and Planning, and Nadine Fabbi, Canadian Studies Center, are co-PIs on both the Québec Visiting Professor Grant and the Québec Unit Grant.

The Canadian Studies Center was just awarded an Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) Fund for the Arts Grant to host an exhibit on food sovereignty by Inuk photographer, Barry Pottle. The Fund for the Arts Grant will enable the Center to host the exhibit Foodland Security in Spring Quarter 2013. The exhibit reflects various kinds of country foods including implements used in its preparation.

Barry is an Inuk photographer, originally from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut. He lives in Ottawa and identifies as an Ottawamuit (Inuit from Ottawa). Given that the Inuit culture is closely tied to food, acquiring country food for personal consumption has been a challenge for Inuit and urban Inuit living in major Canadian cities. Foodland Security is a photo-based project stemming from this idea of access to and the securing of country food.

In Spring 2012 Barry was the keynote speaker for the all-day forum, Canada and the United States in the Arctic: Past Successes, Future Challenges where he presented slides of Foodland Security. Barry wrote about his visit to the UW in the Summer 2002 edition of Nunatsiavut Silatâni. Find the article on page 5 here.

Foodland Security received financial support from a grant from the Ontario Arts Council and will be co-sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Canadian Studies Consortium, also the recipient of a 2012-13 Fund for the Arts grant from ACSUS.

The ACSUS Fund for the Arts grant program is designed to stimulate U.S. academic institutions to organize symposia, roundtables, conferences, public lectures and authors’ appearances in literature, the performing and visual arts, with the aim of promoting Canada through cultural events. For more information, visit http://www.acsus.org/display.cfm?id=311.